Grab a Towel
by La Cidiana
Summary: Dave is hungover and depressed. Hal is trying to help. The last thing they expect is for two familiar faces to show up at their door... but of course, these things tend to happen. Slash and Hitchhiker's Guide references abound!


**Grab a Towel**

by La Cidiana

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**Summary**: Dave is hungover and depressed. Hal is trying to help. The last thing they expect is for two familiar faces to show up at their door... but of course, these things tend to happen. (Slash abounds!)

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**A/N**: Originally did this in response to a Raiden/Snake, Douglas Adams themed challenge on the mgsslash community on Livejournal... and this is what came out. I don't expect to get many readers, (you'd have to be a Hitchhiker's Fan to get most of the jokes and references), but it's been so long since I've posted something on that I thought I'd upload this, if only for old time's sake. ;3

Unnecessary bonus ending. Can be easily skipped.

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There was always a time when things came to a head, when straws broke the backs of many collective camels and when Hal Emmerich's digital watch read "12:46 PM" in loud, digital letters.

The loud, digital letters wouldn't have been so bad had they not represented the fact that his roommate was still planted on the couch.

"Dave," Hal asked calmly as he took a sip of coffee and walked to a place in front of the TV where he could both block out daytime programs and view the collection of liquor bottles that clung like drifters to the sides of the couch, "have you always been this horrifically depressed and I've just never noticed it?"

The rumpled lump of uselessness on the sofa contemplated this for a moment.

"Yeah, probably."

"You've been like this for a while now."

"I thought we already established that."

Hal shrugged and took another sip. Dave sighed a tired sigh and pulled his arm off of his eyes, squinting at the painful amount of sunlight that came through the two layers of curtains that covered the nearest window, (which, incidentally, happened to be five feet away from another building).

"Is that coffee?"

"Yes."

"Can I have some?"

"Sure," Hal leaned forward and handed it to him. "I already had a cup, anyway. This one's for you."

In retrospect, the scientist was rather impressed that Dave managed to hold the mug in his hands and take two sips before spilling it all on the floor.

"Ah, shit," the hungover man rubbed his eyes to get a clear view of the brown substance that was now seeping into the already brown-tinted carpet. Hal was too used to this sort of thing to get _really_ angry; he just growled something pitifully antagonistic and motherly at the same time and stalked off to the bathroom for cleaning materials.

Dave would have liked to say he felt guilty, but at the moment, he was more mournful over the fact that he'd been denied a perfectly good caffeine boost than anything else. He stared down at the mug that still sat loosely in his right hand and tilted it back and forth to estimate whether or not there was enough coffee left to warrant a time-consuming and energy-costly effort to swallow it all.

He opted that there was, but in a moment wished that he hadn't.

The doorbell rang.

Hal shouted, "Justaminute!"

Dave tried to make some sort of imperative sound and instead found that the remaining coffee was now dribbling down his chin.

Hal's "justaminute" turned into justthreehours. The doorbell wouldn't stop ringing. Dave, against all logic, decided to take matters into his own hands. He stood up, straightened himself, and looking as dignified as anyone could possibly be in nothing but an inside-out bathrobe, stained t-shirt, and paw-patterned boxers, answered the door.

"'Ello, there, old sport!"

Dave stared. He could only stare. There was absolutely nothing else he could do in the entire world but stare.

"Listen, ah---we seem to have run into a bit of a fix, and we were wondering if we could get your help. You see, we just moved in to the apartment next door---more of a utilitarian getaway, really---and we were just feeling that perhaps things could be a little more comfortable if we bought your... er... housing here, you know, let you get out of this city and tear down a couple of these bothersome walls here and----"

Dave's fist slammed into his visitor's face before he could really think of any alternative solutions. After watching the man fall to the floor with more than a little satisfaction, he realized that he now faced a tremendous problem. And a man with short blond hair.

"..._Snake_...?" The new blond gawked at the man who had just knocked his counterpart out cold.

"...Raiden," Snake replied by uttering the very same name that had been haunting his wet dreams for the last few months or so.

"The carpet!" Hal exclaimed in horror as he finally emerged from the bathroom with stain remover and a towel.

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Some things are awkward. Some things are _really_ awkward. And then there are some things that make you want to ply off each of your own fingernails and then inflict Chinese Water Torture upon yourself.

David Sears was, in fact, aware of the fact that inflicting Chinese Water Torture on oneself single-handedly was a near impossible undertaking. (He'd tried to train himself to resist it once with an eye dropper and a bottle of beer. Despite the fact that he'd been drunk at the time, he was told later that the results, although ugly, had been hilarious.) However, he did have full access to his fingernails, and though he was lacking pliers, he found that biting them down to the nubbins was at least somewhat comparable to his two more ideal modes of action.

"So," Hal said in the pointedly level voice that parents use when three children are yanking out your hair and a heavy, blunt object is in arm's reach. He carefully placed a mug of coffee in front of each man---two conscious and one not. "How, exactly---" (Raiden seemed perplexed as to why the scientist gave such a dirty look as he put each cup down), "did you guys end up here?"

"Uh, well," Raiden coughed before leaning towards his drink as if to take it and then leaning back again as Hal shot him another glare. "James decided that it would be nice if we got ourselves a pad here in New---"

Dave simultaneously spit out his coffee and snorted it up his nose. It was rather painful.

"James..?" Hal said weakly, trying not to notice the new stain on the exact spot on the carpet that he had spent seven minutes scrubbing.

"Yeah," Raiden tried to say as politely and inoffensively as possible. He gently gestured at the man garbed in leather pants and a half-unbuttoned shirt, who was, at the moment, knocked out cold and leaning at a weird angle on the couch that a chiropractor would gawk at. "James."

"James."

"Yes."

"...Him...?"

"Yeah, James. Like I said."

Dave's body decided to make him begin to laugh hysterically through the fluid that was still lodged in his nose. It didn't work. Hal noticed this and managed to thrust another spare towel at him without really making eye contact.

There was an awkward tension as Dave wrestled with the fuzzy fabric and made strange, pig-like noises as a result. Hal cleared his throat.

"So, how did you two--?"

"Well, er, see--" Raiden deftly turned another reach for the coffee into a scratch of the back of his head. "We met at a department store."

"De_part_ment store?"

"Yeah. Cologne section. Hair care products. That kind of... thing."

Dave would later testify that he'd been on the verge of death as he rolled back and forth on the floor, wrestling both his towel and his own throat. Only one person really seemed to care, (albeit subconsciously), because at that moment, the man with Armani sunglasses and snakeskin boots sat up straight in his seat and promptly reached for the mug in front of him.

"Tea? I believe I will, thank you."

Hal stared as the man with gold earrings and a bright blue scarf brought the drink to his mouth. Raiden raised his hand to stop the tragedy that was about to occur, but alas, a look of horror had already spread across the man's face and most of the brown substance had already shot out of his mouth.

Raiden winced. Hal was amazed that the coffee had completely overshot the man's clothes and hit the carpet instead. Maybe these kinds of things were genetic.

"Wotta bloody'ell_wassat!_" The man with pristinely clean lips shouted. Hal didn't understand a word of it and didn't really care. He eyed the carpet and considered dragging the towel away from Dave, but that probably would've turned violent. Besides, the pig noises were getting weaker.

"Not... tea," Raiden seemed to have discerned a meaning in the mess of slurred words and responded accordingly. The man with perfectly groomed hair and suspiciously thick lashes stomped around and waved his arms melodramatically. Hal could hear the old lady downstairs get her broom.

"Where the bloody hell _are_ we, anyway?" The aforementioned man suddenly paused, frowned, and opened a window. He stared at the building five feet in front of him. "Are we still in the city?"

"Yes, James, we're still in the city," Raiden sighed. "We're in that apartment you've been scheming for months about buying out, remember?""

"Oh. ..._OH_, oh, right, the ugly one."

Hal wasn't surprised that this didn't offend him.

"And..." The very conclusively gay man looked around the apartment and pointed at an arbitrary wall. "..._Why_ are we in the ugly apartment?"

"Someone punched you in the face."

"Who?"

"The man with the mullet and no pants."

"Right. Punch. No pants." James rubbed his cheek and then his hip. "That explains some things."

A very dead silence fell upon them as the words "punched," "mullet," and "no pants" visibly churned through the gears in James' head. Hal wondered about the shit's exact location in relation to the fan, and the angle of its trajectory as it flew through the air.

Two voices simultaneously screamed the name of one of the three phases of matter and a type of ectothermic reptile---respectively. Something launched itself from the floor with a towel in hand as something else threw itself from the window to meet said towel-bearer in battle. Punches were thrown, curses were thrown harder, and three mugs of coffee---two full, one not---careened into the carpet as the coffee table was overturned.

Hal nearly cried.

"FUCKING---------FUCKERFUCK."

A lamp broke.

"SAD-----EXCUSE-------FOR A GODDAMN---------------EXCUSE."

A framed poster fell.

"WHY THE _**FUCK**_ ARE YOU HERE!"

"WHY THE FUCK ARE _**YOU**_ HERE!"

"I **_LIVE_** HERE."

"**_I_** LIVE HERE."

Raiden shifted his weight uncomfortably as someone bit someone else's shoulder and the someone else whipped his towel over the first someone's back.

"I FUCKING **_HATE_** YOU."

"I HATE FUCKI-----I HATE YOU TOO."

Snarl, growl. falling plaster. The old lady downstairs wasn't helping. Hal closed his eyes, rubbed his temples, and slowly began to count to ten.

A small break ensued in which both parties slid to a stop approximately two meters opposite each other. They both grinned maniacally.

"Ohhhh, Liquid..."

"Ohhhh, Snake..."

Raiden thought this sounded rather kinky out of context. Hal continued to count.

"How the _hell_ do you always end up fucking up my life?"

"Heh," Liquid smirked. "I'm like a bad penny. I _always_ turn up."

Snake stared at him for a second.

"You... you got that from Indiana Jones!"

"How would _you_ know!"

"It's my favorite movie, dipshit!"

"It's _my_ favorite movie!"

"Six, seven..."

"Which one!"

"Last Crusade!"

"..._Shit!_"

Hal got to ten and found himself disappointed when nothing climactic happened. The two brothers stared at each other for a while and then launched at each other, this time with renewed hatred.

More things toppled over and broke. The old lady downstairs tapped the underside of the floor more vigorously. At one point in particular, Liquid pulled his arm back for a ram into the stomach, but Snake somehow managed to take a step backwards and wrap his towel around his brother's neck instead, pulling him backwards in the process. Liquid gasped, struggled, and finally managed to get free, but only after Snake had positioned him in front of the opened window.

Liquid stared. Snake smiled sweetly and gave a firm shove.

"SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaa..." The blond's voice quickly faded away as he fell down the five-feet-wide space between the two buildings. Snake turned around towards two gaping mouths and brushed his hands off on each other as a supremely stupid smile overtook his countenance.

"No ticket," he proclaimed.

Raiden stared. Hal started counting again. Raiden stared some more.

"...WHAT THE FUCK IS **_WRONG_** WITH YOU!"

Dave frowned.

"What?"

"YOU CAN JUST THROW YOUR OWN _**BROTHER**_ OUT OF A WINDOW LIKE-----OH... oh... oh just... I don't want to _deal_ with this shit right now." Raiden shook his head and grabbed his coat off a chair, storming off towards the door. "Fuck... fuck, you _killed_ him..."

"Ah, don't worry," Dave had somehow managed to pull a lit cigarette out of nowhere. He took a long drag on it and blew out the smoke with a very satisfied sigh. "He isn't dead. It's physically impossible for him to be dead. A pickled toe that twitches once a day, maybe, but not dead."

Something snapped in Raiden. Maybe it was another straw on a camel's back. Maybe he was tired. Maybe the graphic image of Liquid's shriveled, pickled toe was just really gross.

He slammed the heel of his shoe into the floor and spun around.

"You know, I really thought I understood you."

"Uh?" Dave blinked up.

Raiden sighed and tried to fix his eyes on the largest coffee stain out of the bunch.

"I always wanted to be normal, you know? I felt like I didn't belong, so... I tried to change."

Dave stared. He was unbearably happy and terrified at the same time. Slowly, he said: "I'm... sorry?" And he meant it. He really did. But the shiny things appearing in the corners of the kid's eyes made him want to hide under a bed somewhere.

"It's okay," Raiden smiled weakly. "You're the only person I could ever be myself with... because you're the only one I've ever met who's just as fucked up as I am."

Dave decided to take this as a compliment. He was about to say something incredibly profound when Raiden decided to continue.

"Except for your brother. He's worse." Raiden looked thoughtful as Dave's ego imploded. "Honestly, I sometimes wonder how his body manages to stay joined with his brain without dissolving into a mass of jelloed insecurity."

Before Raiden had a chance to remember that the body in question was probably dissolving into a mass of bloody jello on the concrete five floors down, Dave took a step forward and pulled him into a tight hug, (which was a perfectly normal reflex motion, he rationalized).

"I just..." The blond buried his head in Dave's warm, strongly coffee-scented shoulder. "I just couldn't stop thinking of how much he reminded me of you, and I didn't know if I would ever see you again..."

Dave glanced over at Hal, who had now closed his eyes, covered his ears, and was on two-hundred and seventy-two.

He looked back to the beautiful blond who was currently clinging to his chest. He wondered what was better: Taking the victory gracefully or having a hissy fit over how he and his twin were, in fact, the two most amazingly different people in the entire history of the world.

It was hard, but he went with the former.

"Hey, it's okay," Dave pulled the kid closer and rested his head on top of the other man's incredibly soft hair. He closed his eyes in a bliss whose depth could only be caused by love or liquor. "I'm here now, and... I'm not going anywhere else."

Raiden pulled away slightly with glistening eyes, his lips parted in the quiet, soft way that people part their lips when something exciting is about to happen.

"I love you, Snake."

The taller man smiled in a way that would have appeared stupid if he weren't in such a wonderful situation. Their faces were getting closer, their arms were intertwined, and his lips were parted in the same way as the other's.

"Call me Da--"

A door slammed open. Two pairs of eyes snapped up. Dave's face paled and a dream was crushed.

"_Well_," the man with a completely untarnished appearance sighed as he brushed a few strands of hair out of his eyes. He leaned one hand against the door frame and shifted his weight, angling his hips in such a way that would make a chiropractor who was attracted to men clutch at his or her heart and die. He looked up and smiled pleasantly. "I must admit, I was worried there for a moment."

"YOU-------" Snake's voice was, amazingly, more full of shock than anger.

"Yes, me." Liquid smirked.

"You were heading straight towards the _GROUND!_"

"Yes, well," Liquid brought a hand up and studied his nails. "...I missed."

The words didn't fully register. Snake and Raiden blinked dumbly.

"Four-hundred and seven, four-hundred and eight..."

Liquid rolled his eyes and stood up straight, crossing his arms stolidly.

"I have experience with this sort of thing, understand? Like a cat."

When strange, claw-like motions garnered little to no response, he dropped his hands and sighed.

"That and a bed of petunias broke my fall. Must've killed the whole lot of 'em."

The old lady downstairs, who had been strangely silent for a while now, let out a strangled scream that was followed shortly by a dull thud. Snake and Raiden looked at the floor. Liquid looked pensive.

"Come to think of it, I wonder how they got there in the first place. The petunias, I mean. After all, it's not every day that you find a meticulously maintained, beautifully nurtured garden in a narrow alleyway between two Manhattan--"

"Listen, James," Raiden interrupted. Dave tensed. The kid's eyes had been moving back and forth between the brothers in an uncertain way that Dave had found particularly unsettling. His fears were confirmed as Raiden eased out of the hug and walked to a point that was a safe distance between both siblings. "Maybe... maybe it'd be best if we leave."

James seemed unwillingly reluctant. Dave seemed reluctantly unwilling. The twins gazed towards Raiden and then glared at each other. Raiden sighed.

"Listen," he rubbed his eyes, "if you guys are going to stay at each other's throats like--"

"Oh, no, we'll be good."

"Yeah. Real good."

Raiden felt like hitting himself repeatedly with a brick. Not an especially large brick---just heavy enough to get rid of the migraine that was quickly jackhammering into his skull. He reminded himself to never get involved with ex-military sociopaths ever again but then remembered that he was one of them.

"You know, I'm hungry."

Everyone looked towards Hal. He fiddled with his hands.

"I'm really... _really_ hungry."

"I _am_ rather peckish, I suppose," Liquid scratched his chin. Snake scratched his stomach. Raiden helped Hal change the subject.

"Yeah, yeah... we should talk this over a meal like mature adults. Uhm... isn't there a good coffee joint down on--"

"Not coffee," Hal's face turned sallow. "Anything but coffee."

"...Tea!" James exclaimed after a moment of contemplation. "I know this grand restaurant that serves the most authentic sort of tea... yes, yes, I really do need some nice, hot tea..."

He continued to talk to himself as he walked out the door. Hal followed in a bit of a daze. Raiden looked back and gave the man who had been holding him earlier a half-helpless, half-apologetic look before he too made his exit.

Dave was faced with a few options and a few people that they would affect. He thought about Raiden. He thought about Hal. He thought about how humiliating it would be for his man-stealing brother if he found himself in the company of an unkempt, pajama-garbed man in a chic Manhattan cafŽ.

Dave grabbed his towel, threw it over his shoulder, and briskly tagged along.

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The screen whirred. The audio crackled. An unshaven man stared at a menu that read: "CUSTOM EARTHMAN INFORMATIONAL REENACTMENT: STORAGE FEE _STILL_ UNPAID."

"Err, listen, Ford..."

"Yeah?"

"I appreciate the thought and everything, but are you _sure_ your sources are accurate?"

"Must be," Zaphod snorted. "Something that stupid could only come from Earth."

"I rendered it, actually," Marvin gave a very deep robotic sigh. "I suppose my entire existence has been nullified, hasn't it?"

"Sorry to crash the party, guys," Trillian sounded more than a little tart as she pushed past a potted fern, "but we've gotten another angry signal."

"Oh?" Ford looked intrigued. Zaphod looked ridiculous, but that was nothing new. "What kind of angry signal?"

"The kind that claims copyright infringement," Trillian replied.

"Who sent this... signal?" Arthur tried to be an active part of things.

"Some guy named Kojima. Says he's from Japan."

"_JAPAN!_"

"Yeah, monkeyman. Planet Japan," Zaphod rolled four eyes. "You _are_ totally useless, aren't you?"

"I hear they gave the government hell ever since the plans for demolishing Earth were announced," Ford nodded. "Had lots of investments, I understand. Part of the reason why I thought Toyota and Mitsubishi were high level ambassadors."

"Hey, gang!" The computer announced cheerily. "Our new contacts just wanted to let you know that if you don't go along with their ultimatum and turn over the documents, they're gonna send a _whole_ array of---"

The speakers suddenly went silent. Zaphod pulled his third arm away from a haphazardly wired button labeled "Mute."

"Trying to one-up my style again," he grumbled. "God, I hate the Japanese."

"And Eddie," Ford offered.

"And Eddie," Zaphod confirmed.


End file.
